


Reliquit

by stonedcutoats



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dean Winchester and Sam Winchester Use Their Words, Episode: s15e03 The Rupture, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Episode: s15e03 The Rupture, Season/Series 15
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-12
Updated: 2019-12-12
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:21:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21772867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stonedcutoats/pseuds/stonedcutoats
Summary: After Cas leaves the bunker, Sam finds Dean in the kitchen.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester
Comments: 1
Kudos: 138





	Reliquit

Sam found Dean a few hours later. 

He had heard it, of course. The tense words, the slamming of the door of the bunker. No one could leave the bunker without being noticed. And no one could have missed the tense words spoken between Dean and Cas. And a part of Sam had ached, wanting to go, comfort a brother that didn’t want comfort, and a part of him wanted to chase after the angel who wasn’t really an angel anymore, and beg him to stay. And yet Sam had stayed, perched on the edge of the bed, feet planted on the ground, not letting himself rest. The cold air of the bunker bit at his skin, but he hadn’t let himself get up and pull on the sweater that hung over the back of his chair. Rather, he sat, the last few hours, the last few days, playing over and over again in his head on a loop.

But after a few hours, when he felt more certain that he could stand and walk and talk without the stinging of tears at his eyes, he stood. Sam’s knees cracked when he stood, a sure sign of the times. He was getting older. They both were, and Sam was pretty sure Cas was too, which was a whole manner of trouble that he didn’t have the mental capacity to think about. Was it a sign of how bad times were getting when the angel was being to show signs of wear and tear? The chill in his bones, the aching of his knees. He hadn’t slept in at least a day or two, and when he thought back to the events of the past week, he wished he could just sit back down on the bed, pull the covers over himself and sleep, maybe forever.

Instead, he let himself pull the sweater over his head and relish in the small comfort of warm wool. Mary had bought it for him after she had returned from the apocalypse world. It was grey and practical, exactly what he would have expected in a gift. But he hadn’t expected it, so when she had knocked on the door with it in her hands, he had been overjoyed.

“It looked warm,” Mary had said, trying to explain why she had bought a gift, why she felt as if she was able to give her child a present. Trying to explain why, for a brief moment, she had thought they were a normal family.

“It’s really nice,” Sam had said, holding the folded sweater in his hands, not sure what to do. The moment had been uncomfortable, but perfect, and now, wearing the sweater, Sam felt a little bit closer to his mother.

How strange it was, their family. And how small it was now seeming to get. For the first time in a while, it was just Sam and Dean, like how it was when they first were looking for their father. Sam figured they felt just as lost and confused now as they did then. 15 years of experience, even experience like theirs, didn’t prepare you for the loss of a parent. Had it really only been a week since she died? 

The sweater smelled like the fabric softener Mary had purchased, and it was a small comfort as Sam left the confines of his room and went out in search of his brother. 

The bunker was quiet, the lights were mostly off. Nothing but the electric hum that filled the hallways. Sam knew where to find Dean – he always did.

The kitchen was dim; the overhead light was off, and only the small lamp on the corner table was on, casting a yellow glow over the appliances. A case of beer was on the island counter – two were missing. It was the generic stuff, not the dark craft brew that Sam typically purchased. The clock ticked softly. Sam entered the threshold and grabbed a beer from the case, twisting the cap off. He didn’t really want one, the cold and carbonation was probably the last thing his body needed, but he felt as if he had to.

From his place on the ground, his back against the counter of the island, Dean spoke, “You taking my beer?”

Sam stayed standing, leaning slightly on the counter. He sipped his beer in response, letting the fizzy liquid burn the back of his throat. Sam didn’t have to look to know that Dean had his pictures out – the ones of their family back when things were nice and kind, before the weight of the world and the wrath of a god tore apart any chance of normal.

“How are feeling?” asked Dean. A perfectly reasonable question.

Our mother is dead. The child we spent the last two years raising is dead. God is controlling our entire lives. I shot him and I have a bullet wound in my shoulder that feels like fire and ice. I killed a woman that trusted me. You sent Cas away. I’m scared. I’m sore. I’m so fucking tired. 

“I’m fine,” said Sam. A perfectly reasonable answer.

“Liar,” said Dean softly.

“Do you want to tell me what happened with Cas?” asked Sam, steadily. 

Sam was sure that a few years ago, Dean would have shut down if he had asked him a question about this. Or yelled at him. It was a sign of their age, their fatigue, or maybe something else that Dean only signed, and patted the concrete, an inviting gesture to bring Sam down to an equal footing.

Sam knelt down and sat on the cold floor, opposite his brother, back against the liquor cabinet. Dean’s face was pale, and the dim lighting danced across the beginnings of wrinkles on his face. He looked older, less sturdy.

“He left.”

“I know.” Sam didn’t say anything, only watched as Dean tugged at the paper label on the bottle. The glue gave way after a minute, and he ripped it off in one solid strip.

“He said that I didn’t trust him anymore. That I blamed him for mom.” 

Dean said this tightly. Normally, when Dean spoke, Sam could pick up on the tone, pick up on what he meant. His brother didn’t emote often, and it was a skill that Sam prided himself on. Most brothers knew each other, sure. But Dean was a subject that Sam could ace a test in, any day. Tonight, Dean seemed to want to make Sam work for it.

Sam waited a beat, before settling on a question that seemed innocent enough. “Is that true?”

Dean didn’t say anything for a moment, just picked up a photo from the floor. It was the photo Sam liked the least from the pile. He wasn’t in it, which typically wouldn’t have been an issue – Sam was never one for having his photo taken. But it was before he was born, a perfect family image. Smiling Mary, stoic John, and young Dean. The picture of happiness, before Sam was born, and demons came to play, and his mother burned on the ceiling. 

“Which part?” asked Dean, tilting his head at the photo, before putting it down and taking a long sip of his beer, draining the last of it.

“Don’t avoid the question,” said Sam, quickly, and then he wished he hadn’t said anything at all.

Dean ran his hand down his face in a gesture that Sam had seen too many times. His father had done it. Sam himself did it. Far too often did the Winchester men have to collect themselves before speaking, for too often the wrong words would cause them to break down. Sam wondered what it was like to not live with the worst of your emotions boiling just under the surface.

Dean didn’t say anything for a moment, so Sam just took a small sip of beer and waited. Often, Sam had discovered, you only had to provide a moment of silence to let one’s companion fill it.

“Mom wasn’t his fault,” said Dean, small and soft, after a few minutes had ticked by. “I –I know that. And Jack wasn’t his fault. Mom wasn’t Jack’s fault, but I need to give – I – I need to give this evil a name, Sam, because if it isn’t them, and I think about it too much, its –”

“It’s not you.”

“Isn’t it though?” Dean said, a little too fast, a little too loud. “Jack burned off his soul to kill Michael. And whose fault is that?”

Sam threw back, “Do you blame me for Lucifer?”

It was a low blow, and Sam knew it, but Dean ‘s face fell and he swallowed. “I don’t, no, I – Sam, Jesus. Of course not.”

“It’s Chuck. God. Not you, Dean. It’s not you, it’s not me. It wasn’t Jack, and it most definitely isn’t Cas.”

Dean fell quiet, and Sam stood, drained his beer and grabbed the bottle of bourbon from the top of the liquor cabinet and two tumblers before sitting back down on the floor. He took his time pouring a few fingers into each glass before sliding one over to Dean.

Dean picked it up and swirled the glass. Sam mimicked his motions. They each drank, two men burdened by the heavy reminder of archangels and a loss of control. Finally, Dean said, “He said his powers are starting to, I don’t know, disappear or something.”

Sam’s heart ached. “That must be hard for him.”

“This whole thing is, man, for him,” said Dean. “I mean his son is dead, and his dad is a liar, and he’s losing everything that he knows and understands. Man, last time he didn’t have powers –“

Sam nodded in understanding. For far too long he had felt more sympathy towards the angel than he ever thought would have been necessary. They had come a long way in ten years. There was a lot Sam regretted about the moment in time that Castiel was human, but most of that wasn’t about the fact that Cas had been cast out of the bunker and a lot more about the reason he wasn’t able to stay. But that was another conversation, for another time. More than likely, both of the brothers would die for real before they were able to hash out each and every time that they had hurt each other and made questionable choices in the name of keeping the other safe. 

“What did you say to him?” asked Sam.

“It’s just – I feel like no matter what we do, there’s something. Something just waiting to go wrong, Sam. I mean think about it, when have we ever been happy? I mean really happy, like both of us alive, and Cas alive, and happy?” Dean seemed to ask this more to himself than to Sam. “And – and now what, Sam, we have to find a way to survive whatever shitstorm Chuck decided to throw at us, and maybe, maybe then we get some peace? We’ve lost so many goddamn people, Sam.”

“What did you say to Cas, Dean?” repeated Sam.

Dean took a swig of bourbon and winced as it went down. “He, uh, said that plans always go wrong.” He took a breath. “The whole Belphegor thing. And Rowena – and, yeah, he said, he said that plans go wrong, something always goes wrong.”

Rowena’s name stung in Sam’s ears. Alas, another conversation, another time. “And?”

Dean knocked back the rest of his drink and gestured to Sam to refill it. As Sam did, he spoke. “And I told him that the something was always him.”

“Dean,” exhaled Sam, leaning back, bourbon in hand. Dean looked as if he would cry, if he were the type to do something like that.

Sometimes Sam wondered if Dean knew that he was in love with Castiel. Sam had known for a long time, since before the whole apocalypse, back when Zachariah and the angels kept throwing them curveballs and Castiel took the blunt of the blow. Sam had watched as Dean became infatuated with a creature he had never even thought existed, and there were always moments where Sam believed that one day they would both just let go of whatever rules they were holding onto and let themselves make each other happy. 

Sam remembered the day that Castiel said he loved Dean like it was yesterday. Granted, that was the same day Castiel had almost died. But he also had a vivid memory of how Dean acted when Castiel really did die, and it did nothing but strengthen his hypothesis. 

There was something humorous in all of this to Sam. The deaths that had just occurred, the apocalypse that was seemingly ongoing, and yet the most important thing, the thing that held the most intense focus of the brothers was the crumbling relationship between a man and an angel. Perhaps it was fitting. Afterall, it is often in times of utter distress that one discovers what is truly meaningful to them.

“Why did you tell him to leave?” asked Sam.

“I didn’t tell him to leave, he left,” said Dean, rather thickly, which Sam ignored to preserve some of Dean’s macho façade. “He made that choice. He came in, he talked, and he left. Simple as that.”

Sam took a drink. “Why didn’t you stop him?”

Dean scoffed. “Yeah, right Sam, and what was I supposed to say, exactly? That, that I don’t blame him for things that have happened in the past? That everything with Mom and Jack is okay, and that – that I’m okay? That I’m scared that he’ll be human again, because I don’t know how to keep my own brother safe let alone him, that I –“Dean stopped abruptly.

Sam didn’t dare take a breath as Dean slowly closed him mouth, then lifted his bourbon to his mouth.

Sam could hear Dean swallow in the silence.

“You know how much I care about Cas, Dean,” said Sam slowly, watching his brother drink, gulping down most of his second glass.

“I know,” said Dean gruffly. He seemed to have developed a sincere interest in the last few dregs of brown liquor in his glass.

“And I know you care about him too,” added Sam. Dean froze, and Sam wondered for a moment if he had gone too far, but he pushed on. “We have been through hell, Dean, figuratively, literally, and any other way that we can, and Cas has thrown his entire life aside to fight for us to be able to do what we want, and to have free will – and, and I know that it seems like bullshit now, but think about Cas? Every sacrifice we have made, every choice Cas made, it all has the possibility of having been orchestrated for some stupid higher purpose. Or because Chuck was bored. And that’s hurting you, Dean, I know. And it’s hurting me, and it’s hurting Cas – that’s why he left. But that doesn’t make what we’ve done meaningless, Dean. We make real choices, and real action. Even if the choices were put there by Chuck, we made them. We’ve saved people, people that Chuck wouldn’t have bothered to save. In this universe and in others. If nothing else that means something.”

Sam took a breath, and Dean exhaled shakily. Sam took a sip from the tumbler of bourbon before continuing, his mouth suddenly dry. He wasn’t sure if he was making a point, or if Dean needed to hear any of it, but there was a part of him that had wanted to explode since Mary, since Chuck, and he just needed to say it. “It’s ok if you’re scared. So am I. God, Dean, this is bigger than – than anything, ever. And I know you like to save people around you, because you think that you’re – you’re dangerous to be around, and that you’re protecting them by pushing them away. But Cas leaving isn’t a solution that helps anybody. He belongs here. And not because he’s sad about Jack, or because he’s a becoming less powerful, but because he’s family. He loves us. He loves you, Dean, and don’t tell me that he doesn’t. And you’re allowed to love him too.”

Sam’s chest heaved. He eyed Dean carefully. 

“Fuck,” said Dean softly after a moment, and Sam exhaled gently, and the two brothers retreated back into silence and bourbon.

Sam didn’t wonder if Dean knew if he loved Cas after that one word. Now, he pondered a different question: had Dean ever admitted to himself?

After Michael had possessed Dean, or, Sam supposed, the best way to say it would be after Dean said yes to Michael, Sam had found Cas, sitting at on the stairs that separated the library from the war room of the Bunker, his head in his hands. Sam had sat beside him, in silence. The man and the angel looked forward, as if looking at each other would bring to light subjects they would prefer to keep buried.

“Lucifer is dead,” Sam had croaked, even though it was rather obvious, because if Lucifer was still alive, Sam most definitely would not have been. “Dean killed him.”

“That’s good, Sam,” Cas had said, his voice rougher than normal.

“Michael took over,” said Sam. Sam knew, of course, what it felt like to have your body taken over by an angel. In the years since he had been made aware of their existence, they had entered his body a number of times. Angels were, as Jimmy Novak had so aptly put, like being chained to comet. Being with Lucifer was as if that comet was beating you to death. Sam had lived so much of his life praying to whomever listened that Dean would never have to experience that.

“I tried to stop him,” Cas had said, and the sincerity of his voice took Sam by surprise.

“I know you did.”

“He wouldn’t listen. He would never let anything happen to you, or to Jack,” said Cas.

Sam had known that. Of course, he had. In all of Chuck’s universes, there was not one where a Winchester brother did not sacrifice themselves for the other at least once. It was the most reliable thing about them.

“He’s too good,” Sam had said.

“The Righteous Man,” Cas had added, and Sam had been brought to the stunning realization of why Cas was there in the first place. To rescue Dean from hell, all those years ago. And then he had stayed. And stayed. Not unwelcome, per say, but unexpected. And he had rebelled, and killed his brothers and sisters, and spoke out against his father. And it was in that moment that Sam understood why Castiel had stuck around so long.

In the kitchen, a year and change later, Sam watched Dean play with his empty bourbon glass before sliding the bottle over. Dean refilled it while Sam wondered if there had been any other angel that Zachariah would rather have chosen to go into the bowls of hell to rescue Dean. Probably not. God had probably whispered in Joshua’s ear, and chosen Castiel. Chuck had probably giggled at the thought of throwing the trials of love at two soldiers who fought long and hard for their absent father’s approval, and not much else. Sam wondered if this had all been a part of Chuck’s plan from the beginning, and he was pretty sure that Dean was thinking it too.

It was a horrifying thought, to really think about whether or not the choices you had made in your life had been your own, so Sam had never had any qualms with the reaction Dean had chosen to have when they discovered that fact. But from where Sam was sitting, they had made some pretty damn good choices.

“You should call Cas,” said Sam after a minute. “He needs us. And he doesn’t need us because he can’t handle himself, he needs us because we’re family. Because I need you and I need Cas, because I’m not losing anyone else this week.”

Dean looked up, and Sam pulled his phone out of his pocket and slid it across the cold floor. It skidded into Dean’s leg.

“Call him. Tell him his family wants him home.”

And with that, Sam pushed himself up off the ground and placed his glass on the counter. As he reached the threshold of the kitchen, he turned to see Dean lifting the phone to his ear, awaiting an angel to pick up on the other end.


End file.
